THE Apprentice journey came to an end for an East Lancashire mum last night, but she has admitted that Lord Alan Sugar ‘didn’t fire the wrong person’.

Former Blackburn student Jessica Cunningham was thrown out of the BBC contest following the semi final interview stage after making it into the final five.

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The 29-year-old, who attended Blackburn’s Westholme School and St Wilfrid’s, said she was ‘gutted’ to leave but Lord Sugar needed to work with who he would be most happy with.

She said: “I don’t think Lord Sugar fired the wrong person.

“In business, when you have a partnership, you need to be happy with it and it needs to work for you and for whatever reason, he obviously felt me being his partner wasn’t the right way to go.

“Everyone comes into the process to win and I genuinely thought I could do that so I am gutted to have left.

“When you win it’s like you know you’re good enough and you’re going to make it and he believes in you, but when you get fired it’s like you’re wondering what you need to do.

“The support has been incredible. I can not get my head around how lovely everyone has been and I have learnt so much from being on the show.

“I’ve made so many great friends. There were people I preferred but there was no one I felt I really clashed with.”

The show, now in its 12th year, began with 18 candidates and Miss Cunningham survived being in the bottom three twice before being fired.

She has taken on tasks such as making gin, organising a major London event, creating an advertising campaign for jeans and making and selling sweets.

Miss Cunningham, a mum-of-three who has lived in Colne and Burnley, is now focusing on her fashion business in Sheffield, The Prodigal Fox.

She has left her role as director at a marketing firm to focus on the fashion business.

With new business wear and lingerie ranges coming in soon, Miss Cunningham said she is excited about the business’s future and can put all that she has learnt into action.

She said: “Being on the show was an incredible experience and I have only got positive things out of it.

“It’s an exciting time for my business, we’ve got new ranges coming in and I just want to keep working hard to build it up.

“I have learnt how to work with people better, not to judge people straight away, how to manage my time better and be better in all areas of business and I can take that into my work now.

“Lord Sugar said that I don’t need his help, I have drive and he thinks I will go far, so that was really nice to hear.”